3 Things To Avoid Doing On Twitter

Here are 3 of the main things to avoid doing if you are a business on Twitter to ensure you’re not upsetting your proud and stubborn followers too much:

1. Automated Direct Messages (DM)

Some people argue that it’s good practice to have your Twitter set up so that you automatically DM everyone who follows you, they say there is nothing wrong with simply acknowledging and thanking new online connections. No, no….just no! Nothing gets underneath the skin of Twitter users more than the impression that you are not willing to engage with them. Twitter is a communicative platform and you are therefore expected to communicate on it….the keyword there being ‘ you’, not some auto-generated computer.

2. Do not sell to your followers

On Twitter, people want to talk to you. They want to know there is a human face behind the avatar and a personable and approachable ethos to your company. They are therefore expecting you to talk to them, engage with them and get involved with their conversations. They know you have products/services on offer but they want to find that out through dialogue. They will instantly (and angrily) switch off from you if they deem you are constantly trying to sell to them.

3. Follow and dump

An initial stumbling block for any business on Twitter is building up your follower numbers. It’s all very well having the perfect social media strategy but what is the point in executing it if there is nobody there to witness it? A black hat method of doing this is to follow hundreds of people, only to unfollow them once they have followed you back, with the aim of maintaining your ‘pseudo’ Follower/Following ratio. It’s not only bad practice, it’s bad business – don’t annoy your potential customers. Ultimately, why unfollow them?

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